The D7050 looks great but is useless for anyone who still wishes to use a turntable as it has no analogue inputs whatsoever. Linking a turntable up would require using a phono stage with an A/D Converter built in. Who wants to convert vinyl to digital????

The D7050 looks great but is useless for anyone who still wishes to use a turntable as it has no analogue inputs whatsoever. Linking a turntable up would require using a phono stage with an A/D Converter built in. Who wants to convert vinyl to digital????

I agree, this product may not be for systems that include analogue sources. There is a reason this amp has no analogue inputs: it is a fully digital amp, in the sense that the DA conversion is happening as part of the amplification stage. (I am not even sure that you can call this an amplifier, since there might not be at any stage in the process an analogue signal that actually gets amplified.)

Cypher wrote:

The Nuforce DDA-100 uses the same technology as the D7050 I think.

I had the Nuforce for a couple of days but returned it. The sound was very laidback and the bass was lacking.

In my opinion the Pioneer A-30 sounded better so I returned it.

In the end it all comes down to your own taste

It is the same tech as the NAD M2 and C390DD.

The Nuforce DDA-100 is certainly based on the same principle, but as far as I know it lacks the digital feedback technology in the NAD products.(Or at least has a different implementation.)

In the end, as with all hifi products, the sound quality is determined in a large part by the quality of the implementation. So, other than the particular features of this type of technology, the particular characteristics of this product may be fairly different from the NuForce.

I don't do vinyl, so I don't really have a dog in this fight, but I know a couple of people on the 'Wam and PFM who have high-end TTs going into Devialet D-Premiers/240s/170s. They seem to think the Devialet, with its ADC phono stage, offers better SQ from vinyl than their old analogue phono stages.

So you might also ask: who wants to put their signal through an analogue class AB amp (which will always suffer from crossover distortion) when they can put it through a minimal-distortion digital amp?

The 3020 is smooth sounding, so you'd want energetic speakers for them.

I had the D7050 in my setup the last 3 days and it is also a smooth sounding amplifier. The 7050 surprised me the most with it's very transparant and open sound, inky-black background and very good soundstage.

I used the D7050 as powerdac with my old Philips DVD player used as transport and connected via coax. Speakers were B&W CM5 and Q Acoustics Concept 20.

Compared with my Cyrus 6XP, the 7050 was more transparant, more relaxed and more neutral sounding. The Cyrus was more energetic and had more slam.

All in all a very positive experience. The 7050 is imo when combined with a cheap transport and some energetic speakers easily the equal of most cd player/amplifier combinations costing up to £2000.

I was just wondering if the 7050 and 3020 use the same amplification. The 3020 is 30 Watts at 8 Ohm and the 7050 is 50 Watts at 4 Ohm. I suspect the 3020 and 7050 are identical soundwise bit only differ in features.